Is your ergonomic desk trying to kill you?

‘Active workstations’ may keep you on your toes, but at a cost

JenWieczner

The idea of “active workstations” sounds great. Why not burn a few calories at a treadmill desk while you work, or strengthen your abs on a giant rubber ball while returning emails?

As these products have grown in use, so has feedback on their downsides.

When John Osborn’s treadmill desk arrived in his corner office last August, the New York CEO of advertising firm BBDO spent nearly 80% of the day working while walking. But soon colleagues began pointing out rampant misspellings in his emails. “You quickly realize how difficult it is to type anything longer than a sentence,” he says. And while he had hoped to drop some weight, he found that after a few weeks, his appetite increased. “The big joke around here was I got the treadmill desk and I put on 6 pounds,” Osborn says.

Office furniture that allows employees to stand, walk, cycle or sit on a giant rubber ball includes the Steelcase Walkstation (starting at $4,399) and the LifeBalance Station ($2,795 and up), a combination desk-and-elliptical machine. The products come with health-boosting claims such as relieving lower back pain or stimulating blood flow to the brain. Ergonomic specialists cite injury risks. User complaints include lower back pain. Employers are just beginning to deal with issues of hygiene, etiquette and liability.

While the health advantages of sitting less are well established, helping to cut the risk of obesity and heart disease, the productivity benefits of so-called active workstations are less clear from the results of the small studies to date. A 2011 Mayo Clinic study of 11 medical transciptionists found that typing speed and accuracy slowed by 16% while walking, compared with sitting. And a 2009 study from the University of Tennessee, with 20 participants, found that treadmill walking resulted in an up to 11% deterioration in fine motor skills like mouse clicking, and dragging and dropping, as well in as cognitive functions like math-problem solving.

Steve Bordley, founder and CEO of TrekDesk, which makes desks designed to fit with any treadmill, says such studies don’t account for the added benefits for workers, such as feeling less lethargic after lunch or less absenteeism.

Ergonomic experts say that overuse, combined with too much or not enough air in the ball, may contribute to lower back strain. Since keeping the ball stable requires abdominal strength and concentration, distracted workers may not maintain good posture or end up rolling onto the floor.

Gabriel Gaster, a data scientist for a Chicago-based tech startup, has never fallen off his office stability ball, but says he has a “close call” about once a month. “That keeps you on your toes,” says Gaster.

A 2009 British study concluded that the posture of 28 employees who sat on a stability ball was just as poor as those who sat in a chair. A Dutch study published in Applied Ergonomics the same year found that, compared with chairs with armrests, the balls produced 33% more “trunk motion” in its 10 subjects, but they also produced more “spinal shrinkage,” or compression of the vertebrae.

Kentucky-based insurance giant Humana says it is planning to add to its current inventory of 40 treadmill desks, while Google now has about two dozen between its New York City and San Francisco Bay area offices.

These desks were made for walking

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All those alternative desk chairs may not be helping your ergonomic needs, experts say. WSJ's Jen Wieczner and John "Ozzy" Osborn, CEO of BBDO New York, who has been using a treadmill desk in his office since August, join Lunch Break. Photo: Harbinger.

When Toyota Motor Co. began allowing employees to bring in their own treadmill desk or stability balls, both fell out of use pretty quickly, says Chris Burton, who until recently led Toyota North America’s office-ergonomics initiatives. Things quietly soured, he said, as one woman fell off her treadmill within the first few weeks and another employee claimed the stability ball didn’t achieve his desired goals. Burton’s conclusion as to the benefit of these alternatives? “The jury is out,” he says.

To be sure, balls and treadmills won’t be replacing the desk chair any time soon. Shelly Wolff, a health-management consultant for Towers Watson, a global human-resources firm, says a half-dozen of its client companies tried rubber exercise balls in lieu of chairs—but only briefly.

“It was a terrific idea, but it just really didn’t work because they really were not very safe,” says Wolff. Clients who tried them have reported “many” employee falls and were concerned about workers’ compensation risks, she says.

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